


Touches and lullabies

by Menatiera



Series: BuckyNat Week 2018 [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BuckyNatWeek, Gen, Mention of Past Abuse, Natasha POV, Pining, buckynat week 2018, heavily implied past relationship, touch issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 06:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14038617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menatiera/pseuds/Menatiera
Summary: Natasha wants to help Bucky, but she's not allowed to touch him. But maybe there's another way.





	Touches and lullabies

**Author's Note:**

> To the anonymous prompt: "Can you write another Buckynat piece? Maybe checking in with each other without touching?"  
> Thanks for youtube to the hilariously creepy Russian lullabies, you should totally listen to them with english subs/translations. *shivers*

She sits on the floor at the feet of the couch and doesn’t reach out. She’s not allowed to do so. All she can do is watch.

\--------

_The worst thing is, Natasha understands. She knows what’s going on, she knows the whys and the hows and can even guess the whens. She knows how monsters’ minds’ works who mask themselves as humans._

_James— Bucky, he was treated by them as nothing but the machine, and it never occurred to them how damaging this is to the human. Nat studied and read to fill in the gaps she didn’t know by experience. She learned a bunch of useless facts and crazy experiments and stuff of developmental psychology she never thought she’d need._

_She learned about the importance of touch. She read statistics about babies’ developmental setbacks who didn’t get enough of it in their youth. She reached for research results that detailed the effects of skin to skin contact to a person’s brain. She even did her own research, asked the team to not touch her for a week and— well. Just a week without their casual closeness, without Steve’s hand on his shoulder or Clint’s legs in her lap during movie night or Tony leaning to her when he felt too lazy to stand on his own felt like hell._

\--------

She’s within reaching distance, but physically showing James she’s below him, therefore not a threat. She starts by stating the facts: where they are (the Tower), why are they safe (no one else can come in thanks to Jarvis), how she’s not a threat and Bucky should calm down a little, so she could go to the kitchen and bring some water to him. She explains she doesn’t want to leave him alone just yet because she cares about him.

\--------

_So she understands, really, and at the same time, she doesn’t understand at all. She has no idea how James survived the time after she left. That awful one and a half decade when the only touches he received were hostile, were ones that caused pain in one way or another._

_That’s why the Asset became erratic, that’s why he became more aggressive and went on his own ways during missions, choosing close combat even when his orders were elimination from the distance. That’s why Barnes’s name was on the helicarriers’ hit list, that’s why Pierce wanted to discard the weapon._

_They broke him, then blamed him for being broken._

\--------

Everyone has nightmares and bad moments and PTSD episodes in the Tower. It’s kind of… inevitable in their line of work. James is different, though. Each of them has their strategy to deal with their bad moments. Everyone has some activities to calm them down, some good memories to cling to, companions to go for comfort.

Bucky doesn’t know how to accept comfort and can’t remember anything else but violence: both by him and toward him. He has no strategies against the lurking shadows of his mind.

She’s helpless. She can’t do anything to help him, except talking.

\--------

_And James didn’t know what was wrong with him, so he tried to fix it the way he knew how. He sought contact the only way he could. By touching his targets, ending their life with bare hands. By receiving the punishment for it by his handlers. Hits. Cuts. Whips. Hurt. Whatever, as long as it contained even the tiniest little bit of skin to skin contact that fed his hunger for it._

_Natasha knows that the damage would be permanent to anyone else, but also knows the knock-off nazi superserum would heal James. But not without effort. And as much as a developing brain needs the human, skin to skin interaction, it doubles when a supersoldier tries to heal his brain damage._

\--------

It helps, maybe. A bit. Bucky listens, after a while, his intense and cautious gaze fixed on Natasha, who pretends it doesn’t bother her.

To tell the truth, it really doesn’t. Not anymore. She knows by now that the stare is not hostile. James is just so, so confused.

She wants to tell her about better times. About cold Russian nights spent together, huddled close not only for the warmth but for the closeness itself. About dancing in a ballroom on a covert mission, about how breathless Natasha became seeing James in a suit for the first time, how all her thoughts spiraled out of his head to be replaced by admiration of his partner. About sneaking out to smoke a cigarette together, pulling it out from the other’s mouth and almost feeling each other’s taste on it, faking seriousness while they eyes teased each other shamelessly.

She wants to feel his skin under her fingers so badly. She misses the sensation, now more than ever: being close yet in an incredible distance is a new kind of torture.

\--------

_Bucky would need new stimuli to rewrite the bad connections in his mind, to show him touch is not necessarily something hostile and painful, but he can’t accept new stimuli because of his twisted experiences. It’s not just biological, it’s also psychological. And that’s the problem, mentally James is simply not ready to accept gentleness. That wasn’t the way he was for years, and he can’t magically unlearn the bad imprints. It’s a vicious circle, a classic Catch-22 situation._

_The team is working on it. From time to time, Steve and Bucky have ‘touching sessions’, when Bucky’s ordered to endure it without lashing out and Steve has the expression of a drowning man as he gently puts his hand on Bucky’s arm and caresses his skin, light as a feather, gentle as a lover._

_It helps. But it’s a slow process, not a work of days and not even months, and Natasha is not allowed to touch James yet._

\--------

She pulls her knees to her chest, and lays her face on them, watching Bucky from under half-closed lids, dulling the edge of her gaze.

She just wants to help. She wants to get the old James back, the one he was before the Americans turned him into the Asset, the one he was while he was the Winter Soldier. Steve wants his buddy before the wartime back, and Natasha wants the comrade she fell in love with back, and it hits her now, how no one really wants Bucky for what he is now. Everyone wants to reverse him into something, someone that is lost, maybe forever.

No wonder he feels threatened all the time. nausea crawls up in her throat, from deep down of her guts, and she sighs to push it back.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry we’re not treating you good enough.”

Bucky’s head moves, just a bit, signaling he’s listening. That’s the most he showed any sign of being conscious since he stopped mumbling in Russian.

“You don’t have to talk,” she offers quietly. “You don’t have to do anything.”

\--------

_It’s her fault, technically, that he’s in this state. The Russian division of HYDRA sold the Winter Soldier to the Americans after he helped the Black Widow’s escape. The tortured him, fried his brain so many times even they lost count, then packed him up and sailed him to another continent and left him to the mercy of men who were terrified of the myth of the ghost. It’s hard to tell which made the most permanent damage: the wipes before the shipment or the treatment after that._

_It doesn’t matter, anyway. It’s on her, and Natasha has to live with that guilt too._

_She knows Steve and the team don’t blame her, but Natasha blames herself._

\--------

She isn’t sure what gives her the idea. She finds herself saying, “You know, I can’t remember anything of my mother, only the lullabies she sang to me.”

It’s probably stupid. But she can’t touch James, she’s not allowed to, and if she did, it wouldn’t help him at all. And she wants to help.

“Want to hear it?”

To her utter surprise, there’s a tiny nod. Natasha’s lips curve upward and she straightens her back a bit, to sound better. “Alright,” she says and cleans her throat, then starts.

“[тили тили бом](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDMmj5WgB8c)…” Her voice is trained, and at one point she closes her eyes as she tries to remember as clearly as possible. It was a long time since she hasn’t heard this song, and warm, pleasant shivers run through her as she realizes on the go how well fitting the lyrics are. _Someone’s walking outside the house… He is inside the house… Can you hear him closing in?... Staring right at you._

She opens her eyes. James stares at her.

It could be a song about the Winter Soldier as well.

Just a good old Russian lullaby to scare kids to sleep. Yeah, maybe not the best choice.

But, she realizes, James is smiling. A bit, a tiny little bit. So she finishes. _He sneaks up behind you…He walks closer._

By the time she’s done, she has to notice, the tension is gone from Bucky, he lays relaxed, almost boneless. The non-threatening pose of the Widow and the calming sounds of the lullaby did the trick, and he blinks at her, still with that little smile.

“Want another one?” she asks softly.

There’s a pause of consideration, then he licks his lips. “Please,” he whispers. It’s not a plead, not a desperate sound of submission like he used the word often to others, to handlers. It’s really a request, genuine and honest.

She smiles and starts the next one, hoping she’ll have enough to actually lull him into sleep, dreamless and relaxing for a change.

“[Bayu baushki bayu](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9wrGmsJMw4), ne lozhisya na krayu…”

By the time she’s finished, Bucky seems to be asleep, but Natasha keeps repeating the two songs, almost inaudibly, like she’s able to guard his dreams with the tunes, like she’s able to help him heal with it.

Maybe she is.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this fic, you can visit [my tumblr](http://menatiera.tumblr.com) as well :)


End file.
